Structuring Motivation in a Green Bureaucracy
The Conflict Between Regulatory Style and Cultural Identity

Robert McMahon is Head of Politics at Radley College, Abingdon and a
member of the Department of Politics at the University
of Oxford. He holds an MA and M.Phil. from New College,
Oxford and a D.Phil. from Nuffield College, Oxford.
Rob worked as a Policy Analyst at HM Treasury from
1999 to 2001 dealing with transport spending and then
poverty analysis. He now teaches courses on US and
UK government, political sociology and comparative
government.

The first book to compare the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Environment Agency for England and Wales

Presents a comprehensive account of the centrality of motivation
to understanding the relative achievements of two green bureaucracies
in particular, and of public-sector organizations in general

Essential reading to all those concerned with environmental
regulation and those charged with creating – and reforming – public-sector
bureaucracies.

Covers issues of organizational design, comparative public
policy, and management and organizational studies.

By utilizing the lenses of institutions and
culture – examining
the relationship between regulator and regulated, dominant regulatory
style, and interaction with the institutions of government – this
book challenges the contemporary wisdom that recommends holistic
and integrated institutional forms that result in the decimation
of existing cultural identifications. No sense of bureaucratic
mission can be established where cultural identifications have
been destroyed, regardless of the ingenuity of the institutional
form adopted. The absence of such bureaucratic mission results
in green bureaucracies that are likely to fail in the pursuit of
organizational goals. Examining motivations shows why cultural
identifications within an organization must be congruent with institutional
structures so that these identifications can be established.

Hardback ISBN:

978-1-903900-69-7

Hardback Price:

£55.00 / $69.50

Release Date:

September 2004

Page Extent / Format:

252 pp. / 229 x 152 mm

Illustrated:

No

Preface
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations

Introduction: Explaining Motivations
in Two Green Bureaucracies
Motivation and the Achievement of Organizational Goals
The EPA and the EA: Structures and Cultures
Organizational Design
Institutional Approaches
Cultural Explanations
Two Green Bureaucracies
The Structure of the Book

1 The EPA – The Historical and Political
Context
The Creation of the EPA
The EPA: Goals and Motivations

2 The Institutional Structure of the
EPA
Institutional Analyses
Institutional Divisions Within the EPA

3 The Cultural Schism Within the EPA
Culture
Mission

4 The Reinvention of the EPA
Motivations in Washington Headquarters: The Institutional
Effects of Reinvention
The Cultural Effects of Reinvention
Motivations in Region III: an Overview

5 Creating the Environment Agency
The Development of Environmental Regulation in Britain
Environmental Regulation in Britain: the 1980s to the Present
The Creation of the Environment Agency
Mission in the Environment Agency

6 The Institutional Structure of the
Environment Agency

7 Culture Clash in the Environment Agency

Appendix A – The Interviews
Appendix B – The Use of Case Studies

Notes
Bibliography
Index

The Environmental Protection
Agency is an important book.
Drawing on a wealth of original research including primary sources
and extensive interviews, Robert McMahon provides the first comprehensive
comparative study of the American and British environmental protection
agencies with accounts of how they were established, their distinctive
institutional and organizational features and their effectiveness.
However, McMahon does more than simply analytically narrate these
agencies’ origins and work: he develops and persuasively defends
a distinct theoretical analysis about these green bureaucracies as
types of organizations shaped by their institutional design and internal
cultural norms. The result is an original and impressive book which
will be of interest of scholars and students of bureaucracy, the
environment, and British and American politics. I recommend The Environmental
Protection Agency highly.
Desmond King, Mellon Professor of
American Government, Oxford University

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